Happiness

Today marks the end of a week long fast for many students at Judson College. Congrats to everyone who participated in this. During a fast we take something ungodly out of our day, week, or month that we lust or yearn for. I challenge everyone to stop and take a deeper look at this from a life perspective. Regardless of whether or not you participated in the week long fast, stop for a moment right now and think about everything that is driving and influencing your life apart from God.

What things are you holding on to? What is idolling your life away? What past or present experiences are you unwilling to let go of in your life. What truths do you know, but not want to admit? Who are you mad at or unwilling to forgive? What sin, what guilt is still heavy on your heart? What pain are you unwilling to cease dwelling upon?

Phil Vischer, the creator of Veggie Tales, spoke at the iMAGO film festival and I really liked what he had to say. I was really moved by what he had to say about his life in particular because it rings so true with my ideals: when you let go “your dreams will become God’s dreams”

Letting go is what it is all about. Unfortunately (though fortunately in the long run), for most of us, truly letting go first requires really loosing something big. We lead these mundane, but seemingly happy lives, all the while not noticing how distant we truly our from God.

Even a man like Phil Vischer – a man who brought Christianity into many homes through the Veggie Tales characters of Larry, Bob, and others – ended up slipping away despite his seeming success.

Happiness is when you can give up everything that you are holding on to and just praise God. Through the Holy Spirit we are filled with joy, a joy that comes through praising God and putting ourselves to work for others.

Loosing everything is ultimately what restored Phil Vischer’s life. Suddenly, a man at the forefront of a booming, popular media craze – who became wrapped up in his desires and dreams instead of the Lord’s – found himself wrongly convicted in a court trial and the head of a now bankrupt company.

You know when it seems like everything bad that could happen to you does… and all at once? Well, pay attention, because the term coincidence is often little more than an atheistic word used to brush away the works of God. How ironic that those challenging things, those things that can never be adequately explained away, when they appear… suddenly the word coincidence becomes a justified, scientific term – a rational non-explanation in a modernistic society with a hard driven purpose to explain and prove without doubt every little unimportant question in life.

For Phil Vischer, like people everywhere, going through this time of trial was a wake up call that brought him much more in line with God’s purpose and filled him with a happiness and love much greater than that which he had previously known.

Let go of your life. Allow God to take control. Desire to live for God and share his love with others. Listen to what he tells you and look for his comforting hand when you are struggling – through nature, friends, dreams however he shows it to you.

As you allow yourself to focus more and more on God and allow yourself to stop managing and randomly using up time in your life, you will find an amazingly strong, lasting love and happiness that comes only through Christ.

PRAISE

I walked slowly down the concrete sidewalk. Oh the night air - it is so cold. I cross my arms in front of me trying to keep in the warmth. Hunched over slightly as I walk, my cold back grows ever more stiff. Cars whiz by me to my left, nothing between the sidewalk and the road and brick buildings to my other side pressing me ever closer to the road. Yet still, I feel an eerie silence. I look down. The street light above casts a cool bluish light. It draws a harsh shadow on the concrete in front of me. Barred windows trim off the buildings. Passersby walk along with firm faces looking so gazingly forward down at the path in front of them that they almost loose a sense of life. But I lift my head. I look at their faces; what I can see of them…

I take in the air and let out a deep, slow breath that seems to ride upon it, fading but never ending. So damp here. So cold. Potholed streets. Littered alleys. Glowing, yet lifeless signs hanging above struggling businesses with locked doors. Then I breathe in again – drawing in the souls of those walking by me with heads down. Oh how I see them. How wonderful. How drawn in your image, Lord. But so many, how so lost. Let me breathe out again, but this time let your love ride on the warmth of the air. Let your life light the streets. Let your image clean the litter. Let your spirit lift laden heads. Use me for your purpose. Use me to bring your word of life - to them.

I am a shameful man. A sinner beyond reproach. And you have saved me. You have filled me with a love soooooo amazingly strong. Rays of love break through my soul and body like pins, exploding beams of light, dancing out from within me. My head leans back, my arms down yet in my mind outstretched as wide in praise. I close my eyes. A love so strong I grow ever more weary, literally my body aches from joy. I return it all to you. Give it to others too. Let me share it with others. Let me scour the world for them. I have something to share. I have found a path in my life. It comes through Jesus Christ. I have found purpose and joy beyond earthly justification. It is in the Holy Spirit. Lord use me! Give Me Words! Fill My Spirit! Let me do your will! Let me pour out your love! Lord, I come to you now. Turn my ways and guide me. Give me direction. Let me turn my life to you. Oh Lord, I LOVE you with all my heart. I LOVE you. Use me now! Use me for your will!

Night @ The Campus

I did basically nothing all night tonight (Friday). Around midnight I went for a walk around campus just to relax and get my mind off of things. It was a perfect night for photos (calm and just a bit foggy) so I took the camera and tripod along and snapped these shots.

I don't know how well it got my mind off of things but it did give me a chance to think about how blessed I am to be here at Judson. I really love it here and feel like it's the place where God truly wants me to be.

Burning Praise

There's a certain passion that comes with living as a Christian; it is a burning praise. It doesn't require words, it doesn't require actions, it doesn't require going to church every Sunday, it doesn't require amounts of bible time, it doesn't require "x" acts of charity. It bends the norms of expected behavior, it twists the rules of expected grammar, it shatters the rules of expected priorities. All it takes is the giving of love to God through Christ and the Holy Spirit, whether things are rough or things are wonderful. Everything should be built around how much time we spend loving God and those around us (Matthew 22:37-40). When we make this our priority, our passion will overtake our laziness, our fears, our doubts, our bitterness, and our anger. Some people lecture about the need for discipline, but having discipline is not the issue; the issue is where we focus our discipline. The first place we need to be disciplined is with our love. A man or woman disciplined in loving the Lord and those around them will have far more than a man or woman who goes to church every Sunday, reads the Bible every day, and gives away all their money, but does nothing out of love. These are all good things, but without love, they are severely lacking - rather even "nothing" in the words of Paul. Yes those elements will be present in a Godly individual's life and in fact be a vital part of sustaining it, but as we grow our love and devotion to God, our requirements become our passions.

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing." (1 Corinthians 1-3).

So I implore you with this; where is your focus? In what areas in your own life, your ministry, your church, or beyond has your focus been on the fruits and not on the vine? Are you growing fruit or are you growing branches? A small tree overburdened with fruit with eventually will lose its limbs in a storm, but a large tree with strong branches will bear a great weight and still remain.

Learning Patience & Growth through Trials

--- From my Daily Devotion for Saturday ---

Did you know that what starts as a curse can end as a blessing? When the Mexican boll weevil devastated the southeast Alabama cotton crop, farmers reverted to planting peanuts and ended up producing more than any country in the nation. Consequently the town of Rucker erected a monument bearing this inscription, "In profound appreciation of the boll weevil and what it has done as the herald of prosperity."

When Jesus discovered Lazarus was sick he didn't respond till after he'd been dead four days. But because Jesus was waiting didn't mean He wasn't working. He chose to demonstrate His resurrecting power - to prove that nothing's too hard for God. Joseph was falsely imprisoned for 13 years. But God was with him and he went on to save multitudes, including his family who'd mistreated him. Joseph's struggles made him better, not bitter. But it could have ended differently if he hadn't maintained the right attitude. God used Esther to save her people, but first he put her in the position of living where she didn't want to live and doing what she didn't want to do. Even though a widow, Ruth ended up gleaning in a field where she met and married a wealthy man named Boaz. In addition to bearing him children, she became part of Jesus' ancestral bloodline. So if you're struggling to see God's purpose in your suffering today, rest assured He has one. After feeding a multitude Jesus told His disciples, "Gather the leftovers so nothing is wasted." In God's kingdom nothing is ever lost. When you trust Him, he makes "all things work together for good"

(Romans 8:28) "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

--- My Comments ---

Our struggles can make us better but only if we maintain the right attitude and keep focused on what God is trying to show us. "See God's purpose in your suffering." God will turn it around and use it for good. So often we loose patience and hope with waiting, but God has a specific plan for us that he is building up over time. Sometimes it may be a plan that takes years, but rest assured he is working in your life, and also in the lives of others through you.

Spiritual Dreams - Part 2

(Recap.) God still speaks to us in our dreams at times, and if we are listening. I’m not talking about actually hearing him speaking, but rather having a dream, waking up, and KNOWING without a doubt of its origin. It’s not something you looked for. It was just there and when you wake up, and you know ~without a doubt~ that God has spoken to you. The dreams are also unusually vivid and real.

Here is the second of two dreams that I had. Again this dream came to me directly in response to an unusually deep, faithful, prayer I made to God the night before about something very trying in my life. The dream I have written out here, I careful wrote down right after I woke up from it.

September 18, 2006
I was on a flat cliff with a rocky edge and scattered plants. A large arched stone gate with no walls on either side and raised iron bars sat randomly on the west edge of the cliff. Far below, a weightless walkway coming in from the southeast from a place behind the rocks led to a castle in the sky, but the castle could not be seen. Only its towers and bits of the outer wall were visible through the clouds. The towers were seven times wider and loomed seven times higher than any built by man, towering even above the clouds. Whisping clouds surrounded everything, but the castle still loomed out of the sky. Only sky could be seen beyond the castle. It was a sunny day and the bright warm rays lit up the moving clouds, glared in my eyes, and warmed the stones of the castle with light. I stood at the edge of the cliff surrounded by my friends. With undoubting faith, I stepped out onto one of the clouds which was not there prior, but rather instantly appeared below me, saving me from an otherwise certain death. I departed from the cliff and the cloud slowly but swiftly descended upon the castle - the Kingdom of God. As I neared, I was overwhelmed with the joy of the Holy Spirit and I said my last loves to my friends on light breathes. Just as I neared the castle, I awoke to the sound of my roommate’s alarm, for it was not yet my time to see God’s Kingdom. I wrote out my vision and I was also filled with this thought: “Place God first always and think of others less fortunate and unknowing.”

This was one of the most amazing experiences in my life. An amazing joy on a level that I had never experienced before. The images in my dream were also some of the most beautiful I have ever seen. Words cannot come close to describing it. My spirit has been forever changed. I speak here not with intent to boast, nor in denial of my many shortcomings, but rather merely to make known what I feel that I am pressed to share, that it might be an encouragement for others as it was for me.

“Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.” -- (James 1:2-8)

Spiritual Dreams - Part 1

God still speaks to us in our dreams at times, and if we are listening. I’m not talking about actually hearing him speaking, but rather having a dream, waking up, and KNOWING without a doubt of its origin. It’s not something you looked for. It was just there and when you wake up, you know ~without a doubt~ that God has spoken to you. The dreams are also unusually vivid and real.

Here is one of two dreams that I had. This dream came to me directly in response to an unusually deep, faithful, prayer I made to God the night before about something very trying in my life. The description of this dream is paraphrased from my memories.--

May, 1999
It was a quiet, sunny, summer day devoid of people or cars and I was walking home via the route that I always use to take in Elementary School, only reaching the T-intersection just a block from my home, I was confronted by a tall man and woman, adorned with golden-blond hair and dressed in long white robes with looming sleeves. Each was swinging a long rope weighted by a bead and blocking my path straight ahead down the road towards home. Suddenly, my best friend appeared and said, “I am here with you” and then he took my arm and guided me down the side road and away. When I awoke, I knew that the dream was inspired and that Jesus was the one visiting me in the image of my best friend.

-- These words below are my own “condensed” thoughts… so take them merely as that and feel free to question, comment, contradict, or attempt to expand upon them --

Sometimes we see a straight, easy path ahead of us, but there is an obstacle in our way. God provides us with a “way around” when we are dealing with our troubles, and all we have to do is to take his hand – he will help us to give up our stubbornness, to not get caught up in our fear of the unknown, to recognize our faults and shortcomings that are causing us to stumble. We will always encounter trials in our lives, but by turning to God and allowing him to work in our lives, we will be built up in our faith. He leads us down a wandering path – one that is often unclear and unknown to us, but it IS the path that will lead us most directly to our destination. Oh how we cannot see it though, for the straight path is so clear to us. All that we focus on is the obstacle that is in the way of the destination that is within our sight.

God is Always there for you… through all your trials. His arm is always around your shoulder. His love floats through the air, surrounding you and lifting up your every limb and every finger - filling up your spirit.

“Surely, God will not act wickedly, And the Almighty will not prevent justice. Who gave Him authority over the earth? And who has laid on Him the whole world? If He should determine to do so, If He should gather to Himself His spirit and His breath, All flesh would perish together, And man would return to dust.” – (Job 34:12-15)

“Why do you complain against Him, That He does not give an account of all His doings? Indeed God speaks once, Or twice, yet no one notices it. In a dream, a vision of the night, when sound sleep falls on men, while they slumber in their beds, then he opens the ears of men, and seals their instruction, that He may turn man aside from his conduct, And keep man from pride; He keeps back his soul from the pit, and his life from passing over into Sheol.” -- (Job 33:13-18)

“He will sing to men and say, I have sinned and perverted what is right, and it is not proper or me. He has redeemed my soul from going to the pit, and my life shall see the light. Behold, God does all these oftentimes with men, to bring back his soul from the pit, that he may be enlightened with the light of life.” -- (Job 33:27-30)